DC Comics are relaunching The Green Lantern comic series this November with acclaimed writer Grant Morrison (Batman, All-Star Superman) and artist Liam Sharp (The Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman) taking lead hero Hal Jordan back to his classic roots.

“Instead of the big, epic, 12-part stories, we’re focusing down on the everyday life of a space cop. Basically, it’s no more apocalypse-ending storylines,” Morrison told IGN over a phone interview along with Sharp. “The basic concept is that [Hal Jordan] is like a space cop that patrols a sector of the universe where anything can happen. We’ve made it more like a police procedural.”

A similar grounding tactic was taken after Geoff Johns rebooted the character back in 2005. We saw Hal simply fighting various villains while trying to keep Earth’s sector of the universe under control. In time, though, the storylines grew to become more vast and grand in scale, resulting in interstellar wars and enemies so mind-bendingly powerful that they threatened existence itself. That trend continued with Robert Venditti’s run that saw the Green Lantern Corps tasked with saving the universe from dying -- and that was just the first storyline. You can see why, then, that Morrison and Sharp are intent on keeping things more contained for the foreseeable future.

IGN is pleased to share an exclusive look inside The Green Lantern #1. Check it out by flipping through the slideshow below. Keep reading for details on the story.

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As you can see from the pages, Hal comes across the crashed ship of a fellow Corpsmen who is dying from his wounds -- not unlike Hal’s origin where he met the dying Abin Sur and was gifted the powerful Green Lantern ring. This scenario is a bit different, though. The unlucky crystalline Green Lantern crashed landed his transport on Earth, which turns out was a prison transport taking three of the universe’s greatest criminals to trial. With those criminals now loose on Earth, the first arc sees Hal hunting them down before they wreak too much havoc.

The Green Lantern Corps arms its officers with rings that are a source of great power and unlimited potential. As Morrison puts it, “It’s an intergalactic police force, but instead of guns they’ve got wishing rings that make their thoughts come true and turn into plasma.” And to that end, Sharp has been having a field day coming up with various constructs for Hal to use. Notoriously uncreative with his constructs, Hal often opts to use the most practical bludgeoning tool he can think of, yet in that simplicity lies his charm, according to Sharp. “I love this idea that he’s an idiot savant. In a way, he’s a genius. He can just turn up and kind of assess the situation really quickly, and then just smack it with a giant fist, and it’s all fixed,” he said.

Over the course of our conversation, Morrison and Sharp continued to profess their love for Hal’s early adventures in the comics and how they wanted to give their run a similar feel where things were new, unexpected, and fresh, so while the Green Lantern comics have grown to encompass a cast of hundreds, don’t expect to see many familiar faces. They’re opting to feature weird alien Green Lanterns who have been long forgotten or are completely new. Earth is home to five other human Green Lanterns, but this story is focused squarely on Hal. The Guardians of the Universe will be around as, essentially, police chiefs who run the Corps from the station. And even though there have been numerous other colored Lantern characters introduced over the years, this creative team is content focusing on just good old green.

With Hal’s MO squared away, that left Morrison to crack Hal’s character, which he did by comparing him to astronauts who come back from space feeling shell-shocked, freaked out, and unable to find a place for themselves in society. He sees Hal as a man blown by the wind from one job to the next, unable to be effective unless he’s doing the extraordinary up in space as a cosmic cop.

“He’s a loner and a drifter and he’s an unreconstructed man. It was nice to do that and to go a little bit old-fashioned with it. He doesn’t belong here at all, you know? He’s longing for the heavens, and to be back up as a Green Lantern,” Sharp said, with Morrison adding, “We’re doing Hal Jordan where, you know he’s a good cop, but is he really a good guy? And we’re looking into his relationships and how he deals with people. And also the fact that, if you’ve got a job as a space cop, it’s hard to be stuck on the planet Earth. He has other lives on other planets. We’re gonna be looking into a lot of things that I don’t think we’ve seen a lot with Hal Jordan before.”

Well, he's going to write Hal, and apparently for 12 issues. How big is that? I don't know. Twelve issues isn't many, and he doesn't seem to be changing anything fundamentally.

I don't think Green Lanterns is going anywhere though. I think they're moving Guy and Kyle into that comic, which will suck.

So far I'm not impressed, although I imagine that The Green Lantern will sell.

Maybe that will change.

I believe Green Lanterns will be cancelled, and Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner shelved or gotten rid of some kind of way. Baz, too. I think DC will only move forward with the three Green Lanterns that are accounted for (Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Jessica Cruz). I don't think that Green Lantern Corps will relaunch.

I believe Green Lanterns will be cancelled, and Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner shelved or gotten rid of some kind of way. Baz, too. I think DC will only move forward with the three Green Lanterns that are accounted for (Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Jessica Cruz). I don't think that Green Lantern Corps will relaunch.

I can't see them just getting rid of Guy and Kyle like that. They'll have to do something with them if GLC is going and Hal is joining Baz and Cruz in GLs.

I can't see them just getting rid of Guy and Kyle like that. They'll have to do something with them if GLC is going and Hal is joining Baz and Cruz in GLs.

GLC will not be going on, and Hal Jordan is getting his own title.

If you really pay attention, the only Green Lantern that editorial really values is Hal Jordan. And that isn't me complaining about anything, it's just me stating the fact as I see it.

DiDio apparently said that this series is meant to recenter the franchise on Hal Jordan and show why he's important. Now... the franchise has been more or less centered on Hal Jordan for 15 or so years, and he's pretty much been the only Green Lantern who has been important. After all, his name was on the title of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. Despite that being a dumb, unwieldy, and not particularly marketable title, DC still made it a point to tell readers Hal Jordan was the important character in that book, and then there was everybody else behind him. What need is there to recenter things on this character when it's already centered on him? If you read between the lines, I think what was being said is that DC wants to focus Green Lantern on just him, and these other Green Lanterns, even if they are ultimately unimportant, detract some from focusing on Hal Jordan.

What this instance tells me is that even when sales are poor when Hal Jordan is at the helm, current editorial will take that out on all those other unimportant Green Lanterns and just reset things back to Hal Jordan again (again, just stating things as I see them). Previous editorial regimes would switch leads for a time, or have a more even team book, like the original Green Lantern Corps title, but not this regime. If Hal Jordan doesn't work out, they'll just try Hal Jordan again and try to find a way for him to work out. Those other characters will not get a worthwhile shot, and this is what largely makes them unimportant. We've seen that over the past 15 years. One can make a flimsy case for Baz and Cruz, but they were still behind Hal Jordan's shadow as I saw it.

So, if the only Green Lantern that matters is Hal Jordan (from editorial's point of view), and if you can only sell maybe one Green Lantern book, because the market hasn't shown much interest in buying more than that, what point is there to all these other characters? Since DC seems to see things like that, I can certainly see the powers that be whacking some of these other Green Lanterns or removing them.

The premise seems to be pretty different than what was described by Bleeding Cool/teased in Justice League which is interesting. Wonder if they're just misleading us in the interview or if there'll be more GL news.

It's interesting... but the art kinda' reminds me of Pat Broderick's Green Lantern work in the early '90s.

That's not a bad thing. I think Pat Broderick's stuff was pretty cool most of the time. Yet, at the same time, while I think the art for this current project is cool, and the artist is obviously really good, the proportions are too exaggerated for my tastes. Anyway, what they're doing doesn't sound bad. It seems they're contracting things, which is probably a good idea at this juncture. Green Lantern got pretty overblown and tiring with too many redundant ideas from what Geoff Johns did, and there are WAAAAAAY too many characters, so it's not a bad idea to focus on one and ignore the others.

Speaking of the others, I guess Simon Baz and Guy Gardner are on the shelf for the time being, and Kyle Rayner will be used in a story in which he may die. I'm not even considering what characters I like or don't, but looking at this from a creative point of view, I believe there are way too many of these redundant characters, and I think DC often shoots themselves in the foot creatively by trying to account for all of them.

Way too many humans. It was about as much as the franchise could handle with 4, and thats taking Alan Scott out of the mix.

I'm just relieved to hear someone say no more cheesy rainbow brigade stories, and no more end of the universe sagas. That stuff has been done to death. Stick a fork in it. Back to basics with the main event GL sounds like heaven to me.

The only thing that makes me nervous are the bits where they talk about exploring Hal's character. If I read between the lines, it makes me fear that they are going to be "humanizing" him by making him kind of a jerk who can't relate to other people normally. That could get old really fast, for me.

That first image of Hal in costume makes me not like the guy's work. The battery is odd shaped and the shoulder points are closer to his bicep than his shoulder. It's like an odd mix of Doug Mahnke and Bart Sears.

Shorter stories though! Oh man, that's what I've been waiting on for awhile now. Now if there were even a hint of good news about Kyle showing up somewhere I'd be in heaven.

Never thought i'd be happy about a Morrisson written GL. But after years of Venditti's mediocre and forgettable GL stories, i'm happy to get Hal going back to basics. I'm cautious but excited to be able to read a Hal Jordan GL book again

Not a fan of the exaggerated proportions, but overall, I'm happy with how he depicts Hal. The more important thing of course will be the characterization. I don't see how Morrison sees Hal as a loner - he was best friends with Ollie and Barry (and Tom) and was definitely close with Superman (something that's starting to come back) And of course he got along well with his fellow corpsmen. He really only ever had a problem with Carol, who wanted Hal to be more dedicated to her and her company.

I doubt DC is going to kill any of the other human GLs, I just don't think we are going to see most (if any) of them for a while. They will be safely tucked away and brought back out when editorial feels they are needed.